The City of Lovely Brothers (25 page)

"You have your bath Saturday like everyone else, I assume," Caliban said.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't mind having one tonight.

There's only the two of you to share the water with, and Pa and my brothers get a lot dirtier. As the youngest, of course I'm always number five in the tub."

"You can wait in my room while we have ours,"

Caliban said, "and I imagine you'll be wanting your privacy."

"I don't have to be modest with you, Uncle Cal. Ma says you used to change my diapers when I was a baby and wipe the shit out of my crack."

"We don't use language like that in this house,"

Nick joked. "I'm sure your Uncle Cal knows a better word."

"Feces," Jake said.

"Feces turn you on?" Caliban asked.

Jake's jaw dropped open. "Huh?" "I wasn't talking to you. Nick and I have this running joke about big words."

Jake showed no trace of embarrassment while he

watched Caliban take his bath. Of course, with five men and only one woman in his household, seeing a naked man had to be an everyday occurrence. At the same time, he was curious about Caliban's infirmity, and not at all self-conscious of his curiosity. He did not avert his gaze from the hip. He looked directly at it, and said, "I didn't think it was that bad. Of course I'm used to seeing you limp, but it never crossed my mind you wouldn't look like the rest of us there."

"He don't mince words, does 'e?" Nick said.

"No," Caliban answered, "and I'm glad for it. When I go somewhere, and people don't know me, like in Billings, some people shy away from me as if I was a freak or a bum hip was contagious. Others pretend not to notice it, or not to see me. I like Jake's honesty and how he looks at it straight on."

"That's quite a mouthful, Cal. It's my turn to wash now. Let's see if he's as tolerant with a fat man."

"I'm going to watch you very carefully, Uncle Nick, and give you my opinion when you finish your bath."

"And we'll sit right here and stare at every part of you when you take yours, and tell you what we think." "You're making it sound like some sort of beauty contest, Nick."

"No question who the winner's gonna be, Cal."

"Who?" Jake wanted to know.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Jake," Caliban said.

"Then you win hands down, Uncle Cal, hip or no hip."

Jake took Nick's challenge and stared at him

throughout his bath. "Well?" Nick asked while he was toweling off.

"You're not fat."

"Okay, kid, off with everything. You sit there, Cal, and keep your eye on him so we can compare notes."

For all their jokes about staring, the three felt very casual and relaxed. In fact, after he'd dried himself, Jake twirled around with his arms out to the side at shoulder height, then stood facing them with his legs spread, stark naked, and said, "Okay, Uncles, tell me the worst."

"You ain't fat neither," Nick said laconically. "I'm turning in. You two can stay up and gossip about me as long as you like."

Nick always joked, but Caliban thought something must lie behind the self-deprecating barbs he was making tonight. Disappointment? Jealousy? "We're tired too," he 31said. "Jake, let's go to bed."

* * * *

Caliban waited half an hour listening to Jake's soft breathing to be sure the boy was asleep. Then he slipped out of bed and tiptoed to Nick's room and got into bed with him. "I couldn't fall asleep without you," he whispered, "especially not on a Friday, even if we can't do anything with Jake sleeping in the next room."

"What'll ya tell 'im when he finds us in bed together in the morning?"

"That he snores. You don't hold it against him that we won't have sex tonight?"

"Ain't his fault it snowed."

"You know what I thought of when we were lying in bed together? The night Caleb and I slept together and he decided it was up to him to tell me about sex. You remember me telling you about that?"

"I ain't likely to forget he come on to you."

"He did not!"

"You tempted to come on to Jake?"

"Don't say things like that, even as a joke. Jake's a kid and he's like a son to me. What kind of low-life do you think I am?" "Then what made you think o' Cleb?"

"I was wondering if I ought to tell him about the birds and the bees."

"What could you tell him about doing it with women? Or did you have it in mind to tell 'im how to please a man? Anyways, I'd thought by now his pa musta took care o' that part of his education."

"I should hope so! Calhoun was two years younger when he got a girl in trouble. Say, you're not thinking you'd like to get your hands on Jake, are you?"

"Are you kidding? The only one I want to get my hands on is you. I'm just sorry I can't do it now."

"Are you annoyed Jake barged in on our bath time?

I can't help but feel you're jealous of him tonight."

"I ain't jealous o' the kid. It ain't the bath, neither.

It's that it's a Friday. And it hurt just a little when you said he could call you Uncle Cal. That's my name for you."

"You don't mind that I said he could call you Uncle Nick?"

"Hell no."

* * * *

The snow let up early during the night, and there wasn't but an inch on the ground the next morning. Jake 31was cooking breakfast for his "uncles" when they came out of Nick's room.

"Yeah, I know," Jake said. "I snore."

"I was thinking you could stay here till after lunch, and we'd have another lesson this morning," Caliban said.

"Thanks, Uncle Cal. I'd like that."

When Jake was getting ready to leave, Nick said,

"Why don't you come on Saturday from now on instead of Friday, Jake? You'd have a whole afternoon for your lessons, and then you could stay the night and ride to church with us the next morning."

They all thought it was a fine idea.

* * * *

Jake was right to say they had not seen the last of Calvin Jr.'s misbehavior. He refrained from stepping out of line on Monday, but on Tuesday he went out of his way to irritate Caliban. Finally Caliban had had enough and decided one or two whacks was the only way to put an end to it forever. He went and got the stick and ordered Calvin Jr. to go into what they called the vestry, a small room on the altar side of the church where the preacher took off his coat and changed into a clean shirt before the service.

"You're gonna hafta make me go there!" Calvin Jr. challenged, and made Caliban chase him around the room.

He knew his uncle would not be able to catch him because of his bad hip.

Jake grabbed him by the arm as he ran by and

handed him over to Caliban. Instead of dragging the struggling boy to the vestry, which would have been difficult with his weak leg, Caliban laid into him where they stood. He had thought he would give him only three or four strokes, but the kid had gone too far in making Caliban chase him. He did not spare the rod but gave him a full dozen, like his mother. Calvin's backside was still sore from the licking Darcie had given him, so he cried more than he had on Thursday.

"I'm gonna tell my pa," Calvin Jr. threatened, rubbing his behind.

"You do that," Caliban said, "and while you're at it, why don't you stand on the porch and announce it to the whole ranch?"

"I s'pose you want me to stand in the corner now,"

the boy sniffled.

"No, I want you to sit down on where it hurts and go on with your lessons."

After the children had gone home, Jake said, "I'm glad you gave it to him in front of everyone. It felt good."

"Not to him it didn't."

* * * *

Jake remained Caliban's assistant two more years and left to study at the University of Wyoming at Laramie when he was nineteen. He would have to do two years in college before he could start medical school. Although he had not saved up much more than for those two years, he would be boarding with his Aunt Callie and he thought he could earn a fair amount as a private tutor. He could advertise two years' teaching experience.

He came to say goodbye to Caliban and Nick the

evening before his departure. "I have something to say to you both," he said, "something very important, and I want you to hear me out without interrupting." He seemed embarrassed. He took a deep breath and spoke without hesitating, as though he had memorized what he was going to say.

"I want you to promise me you'll be careful. I know you are careful, very careful, but men like you can't be too careful. I don't know whether it's because what you do frightens people or disgusts them or what, but they hate people like you. They say ugly things and do ugly things.

They hurt them, and worse. I know you know all this. I just don't want anything to happen to you." "So you know about me and Nick?"

"I've known since the first night I stayed over and we were going to sleep together when it snowed, and you sneaked out of bed and went to sleep with Nick. I told you in the morning it was because I snored. I don't. I said it so as not to put you on the spot thinking you had to come up with an explanation."

"I know you don't snore, Jake. I lay next to you for a long time after you fell asleep. Then you understand?"

"No, I don't understand. But I don't think it matters.

Maybe it would have mattered if it had been anyone else but you and Nick, but it was you and it was Nick. I was confused for a few weeks, trying to explain it to myself.

Then I decided there was nothing to explain. I look at it this way: I don't understand why Zeke and Jared like cooked carrots so much. I hate cooked carrots, but that's no reason why Zeke and Jared shouldn't eat them. Am I making any sense?"

"You're making perfect sense. I couldn't have said it half as well."

"Gee, that was easy. I didn't know what I going to say until I said it; not about understanding or not understanding, anyway. I didn't think you would ask me how I felt."

"So you're not like us." "Not that way, no. Clay saw to it I had my first woman when I was seventeen, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I still like it. I've never wanted to try it with a guy."

"I'm glad to hear it," Nick said. "It'll make your life alot easier. Do we get a hug, or would you prefer to skip that, knowing what our tastes are?"

"You're teasing, aren't you? When have I not wanted to give you a hug?"

They hugged, and then watched Jake ride off

toward home.

"Ain't that kid something?" Nick asked. "Never seen anything like 'im. One in a million."

Caladelphia Village, as Calhoun called it, continued to grow. There were now a few motorized vehicles on the property. Calvin and Calhoun both owned a truck, though neither of them saw much need to buy a car. Calvin's general store was one and a half times bigger. Besides the original houses for the married workers, which had been squeezed close together west of the bunkhouse, others had sprung up farther apart over what had been grazing land. A number of the ranch hands had other skills, and had set themselves up part-time as independent craftsmen. The ranch —that is to say, the village— had a cooper, a saddle-maker, a wheelwright, even a glazier. Calhoun used their services too. And although he and Calvin were barely speaking to each other, they pooled their money to bring a full-time veterinarian onto the ranch. One of the cars belonged to him.

The ranch had had a flour mill since their

grandfather's day. Shortly after Calvin opened the general store, he had had the mill enlarged so it could grind enough for all of Caladelphia's residents. A few trips to town to pick up flour so he would have enough in stock to keep up with demand was all it took. Though the mill belonged to 32him, he hired a miller to operate it.

Three of the workers' wives got together and

opened a bakery, working out of one of their houses. They sold cookies, cakes and pies. Calvin thought it was a stupid idea; any woman knew how to bake her own pies. The unmarried workers couldn't bake pies, however, and most of the women would sooner have bought a pie than baked one, so before long they found themselves running a successful and lucrative full-time business. Their husbands built a bakery for them next door to the general store, and they started baking bread as well.

Not long after, the widowed father-in-law of one of the ranch hands came to live with him and his wife. He was originally from Germany and made better pork sausages than Darcie. He was a proud man who did not like being dependent on his son-in-law. He took his life's savings, bought a two-room house from Calvin, and set it up as a butcher shop while he went on living with his daughter and her husband. People still smoked their own hams, slaughtered their own chickens, and hunted rabbits and such, but when Calhoun or Calvin slaughtered a steer, or two or more families chipped in to buy one from them and slaughtered it, it was easier to bring the sides of beef to him, pay him to cut it up, take what they wanted for themselves, and have him sell the rest for a share of the 32profits. At Darcie's suggestion, he rented a space behind the barn to build a pigsty, and the Caladelphians had fresh pork year round. Calhoun complained about the smell. "Nothing wrong with every family raising their own pig to kill in the fall," he said. "I like pork much as anyone. But what kinda people can live having a whole herd o' them around all the time? It ain't healthy. They're dirty, and their shit stinks."

Other small businesses soon followed. Now there

was a row of storefronts side by side down the slope from the old homestead with a wooden sidewalk in front of them. In addition to the bakery, the butcher's and the general store, they had a barber shop, a hardware store, a tailor, a cobbler, who did mostly repairs, and so forth, but no post office. There was a plumber, too, who had come to put in indoor plumbing and a water heater for Calhoun. Not to be outdone, Calvin had had the same installed in his house and also in the bunkhouse. Those families who could afford it had done it, too. The plumber stayed on, but he didn't have a shop. They even had an infirmary staffed by two of the ranch hands' wives who claimed to know something about nursing, but it didn't have a doctor.

Finally, Calvin had also opened a candy store and soda fountain, and as soon as Calvin Jr. was tall enough to lean over the counter he put the boy in charge of it after school hours, saying it would familiarize him with the pride of 32ownership, give him experience running a business, and teach him the value of money. Except for the pride of ownership, it didn't.